By Luis Torres, Staff Writer/Photographer
The Haas Factory Team and driver Cole Custer has endured a rough go all across the board in the NASCAR Cup Series.
With 10 races left in the regular season, Custer and the No. 41 Ford team have no choice but to find a way to win. The former Xfinity Series champion sits 34th in points, third to last among full-time drivers with only Riley Herbst and Cody Ware being worse in the standings.
For once this season, things appeared to go Custer’s way. In last Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Custer scored his first top-10 all season with an eighth-place result.
No mistakes played a pivotal role, which is something Custer hopes kickstarts a much-needed turnaround that could get the No. 41 team back on track.
“It was great for our team being able to go there and get an eighth-place finish, our first top 10 of the year,” said Custer during Wednesday’s media availability. “We just had a solid car all day and good strategy. I didn’t make any mistakes. The pit crew did well and didn’t make any mistakes, so, overall, it was just a really solid day for us.
“Hopefully, at the halfway point of the season we’re able to start clicking off some good finishes and moving in the right direction.”
Custer was honest about the team not getting off to a great start, moreso on the intermediate tracks where he’s yet to score a top-15 finish. That in mind, he explained the team have brought better cars to the racetracks and is adamant they’re heading in the right direction.
“Hopefully, as the year goes we’re able to work better and better and get all of the aero stuff figured out for those tracks because it’s just so important when you go there,” Custer explained. I feel like we’re moving in the right direction, it’s just a matter of putting races together.
“I feel like the road courses, the short tracks, the superspeedways, all of those should be strong suits for our team. I think we’re still working on the intermediate stuff, but I think we’re rolling in the right direction.”
Sim work is something Custer noted that’s made him a better driver where putting in the work and learning from notes have significant importance. There’s notes the team have looked at from its glory years under the Stewart-Haas Racing banner, but with a lot of moving parts and figuring out what meets the car and team needs, it’s been no easy task to conquer.
“We have different simulation than we had last year and different tools to work with, so there’s a lot of different moving parts that it’s not as simple as just plugging one thing in and hoping it works,” said Custer. “We actually found that out at the start of the season, so you really have to tailor it around your team because it’s all new people, all new tools, so we’re really having to work through that stuff, and I think we’re starting to get in the flow of things halfway through the year.”
Being the only team with SHR ties, the pressure is evident. Not just Custer, who considered the move back to Cup as a reset, but the whole organization.
“At this level, we all want to go win,” said Custer. “Everybody on our team, there are a lot of people who have won races on our team that expect to go run up front, so I feel like that’s our end goal is to go and compete for wins.
“We’re putting that pressure on ourselves. We know we need to get better. I think at the end of the day, our guys aren’t gonna stop working until we get there.”
Those challenges will be put to the test in Sunday’s The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway (2 p.m. ET on Prime Amazon). In seven previous Cup starts at the 2.5-mile “Tricky Triangle,” Custer’s best result was 16th in 2020, taking place in the first leg of a doubleheader that year.
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